Regenerating 100-Hectare Forest in Mt. Fuji

We wish to extend our deepest gratitude to GlobalGiving donors for your generous support.

We are happy to share with you the good news.

On October 17, OISCA was one of the organizations that received the Environmental Award from the Japanese Government. This is in recognition to more than 13 years of initiative to restore Mt. Fuji’s forest ecosystem by planting broad-lead species of trees in collaboration with various companies and volunteers.

The saplings of Japanese oak, beech, wild cherry, alder, and maple that we started to plant in 2007 have grown into an average of 5 meters high (the tallest have reached 10 meters high). Unfortunately, these growing trees are vulnerable from extreme weather condition such as typhoons, strong winds, heavy snow falls, and deer infestation. We have been doing various interventions with the help of volunteers to protect these trees to guarantee their survival. However, due to corona, the site maintenance activities involving volunteers that we planned to implement this year were all canceled. With the help of sub-contracted forest workers and our staff, we raised up the growing trees that have collapsed and re-installed nets and bamboo sticks to protect them from deer. Despite our efforts, we just managed to cover only 40% of our target area this year. We are still far behind the schedule.

With your support, we hope to raise more funds to enable us to buy materials such as nets and bamboo sticks needed for the site maintenance, hire more professional forest workers, and transportation cost of staff to the site. If we can sustain our project and with continuous proper maintenance, we hope that these growing broad-leaf species of trees will gradually replace the monoculture shirabe forest of Mt. Fuji. Inspired by the noticeable improvement of biodiversity within our 100 hectares project site, with your support, we are committed to hasten Mt. Fuji`s regeneration.